I can’t pick the lock.
I can’t very well just stay here and wait for them to kill me either.
I only have one choice.
I fumble for the hunting knife strapped to my belt. The blade is thin, but sharp. I’ve used it to cut through squirrel bones and to decapitate pigeons. I’m not sure how it will hold up against a human bone. Truth be told, I’m not sure how well I’ll hold up either, but it’s the only option I have left.
The human body can only sustain so much blood loss before failing. The distance back to Rowland’s town isn’t too great. If I staunch the bleeding, maybe I could make it back there before drawing too much attention…
There’d be a trail of blood leading straight back to him and his people. He wouldn’t be too pleased about that, but if I die now, it’s not like I can come back. At least they can relocate, rebuild.
They might not have the time though.
There’s no telling who set this trap, how fast they’d follow me back to Rowland, and how deadly they could be.
The knife’s tip stops short just between the cuff and my skin. I’m not sure I can do this, to myself, to him, or to any of the innocent people in Hulbeck—
Not Hulbeck… Though, if I lead a gang a vicious ruffians to their doorstep, the town could find itself in much the same predicament. What if that’s exactly what happened with my home? Someone was out wandering, they stumbled upon trouble, and instead of dying with honor, they ran like a coward and brought upon the devastation of our entire home?
I can’t do that to someone…
“Careful now,” a rich, silken voice croons from the shadows, making me jolt and drop my knife. I scramble to retrieve it as the man continues. “You might give yourself a nasty cut. And all that blood? You wouldn’t want to draw the attention of the monsters I have waiting in the shadows now, would you?”
10
THE BLOOD PRINCE
His tone says it all. Evil has arrived. Not the kind that robs someone blind either. I can tell just from his ghastly inflection—and perhaps from his disturbing choice of words—that this is the kind of monster that takes pleasure in lapping up blood.
Noctis.
Many of them, if I’m to believe him anyway.
My blood runs ice cold and I stiffen. With my blade still hovering over the tender underbelly of my wrist, I can’t help but wonder if I should just plunge it into my flesh and be done with it. Bleeding out here in the middle of this grimy street would surely be better than whatever torment they have planned for me.
But what if there’s still hope? Rowland knows I came out here to see if I could find anything about what happened to Elison. Surely, if neither of us show back up, he’ll send others to come looking for us.
Maybe death isn’t yet inevitable.
Deciding it best to see how this plays out, I lower my knife and get a better sense of my bearings. As I glance around the courtyard, the well where Elison reportedly disappeared from just a few feet away, an envoy of noctis descends upon the previously deserted streets. They circle me like a pack of wild hounds, ravenous and antsy.
My neck snaps wildly to keep a wary eye on them all, trying to assess which of the monsters prowling toward me will be the biggest threat. The unfortunate truth is that as long as I’m chained in place and without my crossbow, I won’t stand a chance against any of them. Only one of them doesn’t frighten me, a young noctis male with a complexion not quite as dark as Rowland’s, and that’s only because the hunger in his eyes is duller than that of his counterparts, his fangs tinged pink from a recent feed.
The others though—the female noctis with hair as fiery as her temperament; a deranged-looking, middle-aged male noctis with a lifetime of war reflected in his eyes and etched in the scars marring his body; the smirking noctis who seems all too pleased with himself at finding me so helplessly snared—all of them make my bones rattle with fear. Their hollowed eyes scream of a hunger that’s been gnawing away at them for days.
But it’s the white-haired noctis that petrifies me in place.
In the blink of an eye, I’m back in Hulbeck, peering through the front window at the noctis king as he storms into town.
They look so similar that it takes me a long moment to convince myself that the male marching toward me, snuffing out the safe distance that’s cast between us, isn’t King Tor. It couldn’t be.
The noctis king was in his early twenties when he overthrew the Magistrate to claim the throne. He’d have to be nearing forty by now, but the noctis headed for me looks far younger, perhaps even close to my own age.
With startling clarity, I realize I’m staring at the noctis prince.
King Tor’s son and only heir.
The one and only Prince Malachi.
